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I ask this question very simply because I saw an article the other day about a bookstore in England that offers patrons a vacation of running a bookstore for a week. You pay 150 British pounds for the privilege.
As a book lover, part of me thinks that would be cool. I mean, I like being in charge, and at a bookstore no less. Fun, right? Well, maybe not. It’s a job. You have to deal with customers and help them find things (in a store you know nothing about) and be nice to them when they come in and ask for the book of a nutter talk show host you can’t stand. But then, you’d also get to talk about books with people who are interested in books.You could recommend things to them, get recommendations from them, learn little-known minutiae through conversation. And you’d be surrounded by that wonderful, crisp smell of paper and ink. A smell that wonderfully conveys knowledge, mystery, subterfuge, love, history, war, jealousy, rage, kindness, heart, and every other topic written on pages.
It’s an interesting prospect because there are some jobs that people consider dream jobs. But are they dream vacations? I just don’t know. I think it might be fun for a day or two, but I’m pretty positive I wouldn’t want to spend a whole week at it. I think if I were on vacation, I’d like to see the sights, see what the town has to offer, and visit the bookstore as a customer, rather than a proprietor.
Would you do a bookstore vacation? Is there any job you think would be fun to do for vacation (Spend the week as a pilot; Be an actor for a week; or even Be a Park Ranger for the week)?
P.S. Today is the last day to grab Life First for 99 cents.
It might be a decent test-drive for people who have always dreamed of running a bookstore. Not sure I’d call that a vacation, though.
Oh, yeah, that would be a good test drive. I hadn’t thought of that. But, beyond that, I think you’d have to have a very different idea of vacation for that to count as one.
No, that would not be for me. When I vacation I don’t want the anxiety of not knowing what I’m doing or the possibilty that my errors could cause damage to the business.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Being responsible for other people’s stuff can be very stressful. It might be more fun if it were like a B&B, where you just woke up above the bookstore, and then got to go down, have breakfast and browse throughout the day.